Now, let me amaze you with my powers of mind reading. Was the adjective that just popped into your head one of the following?

Cost-effective

Value-add

State-of-the-art

If so, I hate to break it to you, but … you sound like every other salesperson in the world. And because your pitch is essentially white noise to buyers, they tune you out instantly.

Don’t you just love it when a salesperson opens their mouth and unleashes a barrage of jargon? Yeah, me neither. Whether you’re trying to capture your prospect’s attention or differentiate from your competitors, make sure you cut this crap out of your vocabulary.

Promotional Puffery

One-stop shopping

Industry leader

Breakthrough

Leading/leader

Partnership/partner

Groundbreaking

Impressive

Unique

Innovative

State-of-the-art

Powerful

Best

Key

Tops

Great

Outstanding

Cost-effective

Experienced

Number one

Premier

Ultimate

Technical Tripe

Next-generation

Disruptive

Flexible

Robust

Solution

Cloud-based

World-class

Easy-to-use

Cutting-edge

Value-added

Mission-critical

Leading-edge

Turnkey

Best-of-breed

Enterprise-class

User-friendly

Scalable

Creative Crap

Outside the box

Innovator

The big idea

Synergy

Dramatic

Strategic

Game changer

Customer-centric

Voice of the customer

Critical mass

Buzz

Make it pop

Break through the clutter

Next level

Impactful

The Important Reason These Phrases Are So Awful

Why are these phrases so awful? They’re clearly overused, which is one reason. But there’s a far more important issue that could be devastating to your sales process:

All of these words and phrases are about the salesperson and their product or service — not the buyer!

You might think that flashy adjectives attached to your product or service will snag buyers’ attention. But you know what technique is a whole lot more effective to achieving this end? Demonstrating genuine curiosity about your prospect’s situation, and asking thoughtful questions that get to the heart of their challenges. The more you can make your sales process about your buyer, the better — for both your prospect and your quota attainment.

Today, it’s not salesperson vs. buyer; both sides need to join forces in order to solve challenging problems. The best salespeople have their prospects’ best interest at heart and truly want to see them succeed — whether it’s with their product or service, or with another solution entirely.

Are you a salesperson who wants to commit to a more modern way of selling — a way that helps prospects through their buyers’ journey instead of shoves cold leads through a funnel? Are you sick and tired of the bad reputation salespeople get thanks to the few using underhanded and outdated practices? If so, click below to sign the PASST [People Against Slimy Sales Tactics] petition. If the petition gets more than 10,000 signatures, HubSpot will unveil something you’ll definitely want to see.